Boeing Co beat out Lockheed Martin to retain its position as the prime contractor for the U.S. long-range missile shield, the Pentagon said on Friday.

The U.S. Defense Department said it was awarding Boeing a $3.48 billion, seven-year contract to develop, test, engineer and manufacture missile defense systems.

A team led by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon Co had vied with Boeing to expand and maintain the Ground-based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, hub of layered antimissile protection.

Boeing partnered with Northrop Grumman Corp to retain the work.

“We believe the government conducted a fair and open competition, making the right decision for the future of the program,” Norm Tew, Boeing vice president and program director of GMD, said in a statement.

Lockheed said it was “honored” to have participated on the bid, a company spokesperson said in a statement on Friday.

The GMD contract’s value to Boeing will have been about $18 billion from January 2001, when it formally became the system’s prime contractor, through the end of this year, Boeing has said.

GMD uses radar and other sensors plus a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network to cue interceptors in silos at Fort Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The shield has been shaped initially to guard against ballistic missiles that could be fired by Iran and North Korea. It is the only U.S. defense against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads.  [Reuters]

(click to see others)

GMD will remain part of the USA’s missile defenses, but it won’t be expanding. At present, the main competition centers around the long term maintenance contract for the existing GMD systems. This is about more than just the missiles. It also includes radars, other sensors, command-and-control facilities, communications terminals, and a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network.

Boeing (existing contract holder) and Northrop Grumman (GBI missile) are one bid team, but they have not detailed their full team of sub-contractors.

Lockheed Martin (prime contractor and systems integrator) is teamed with Raytheon (GMD Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, systems engineering, development, modeling and simulation, operations and sustainment, manufacturing, testing and training), and its supporting team includes:

• Alaska Aerospace Corporation (local maintenance)
• ARES Corporation
• ATK Aerospace Systems (Ground-based Interceptor missile)
• Bechtel National Inc. (engineering support for operations, maintenance and upgrades of launch site, schedule integration for the operational asset management system)
• Bluespring Software
• CohesionForce Inc.
• Dynetics Inc. (information assurance, cyber support training, modeling, systems engineering)
• Harris Corporation (In-Flight Interceptor Communications System Data Terminal)
• Imprimis Inc.
• IroquoiSystems Inc.
• Mission Solutions Engineering
• NANA Development Corporation’s ASTS-Akima Logistics Services Joint Venture
• Northrop Grumman Information Systems (GMD Fire Control and Communications)
• Orbital Sciences Corporation (GMD Orbital Boost Vehicle)
• Oregon Iron Works Inc.
• Quadrus Corporation
• QuantiTech Inc.
• TDX Power Inc.

Nov 25/11: Revised proposals are in to maintain the USA’s GMD system (vid. Jan 28/11). Boeing and Northrop Grumman | Lockheed Martin | The Hill.

Nov 16/11: The Missile Defense Agency awards a cost-plus-fixed-fee contract modification, exercising a $36.7 million option with Boeing Co. in Huntsville, AL to continue GMD sustainment and operations support from Dec 1/11 through Feb 29/12. That brings the total contract value to $729.6 million, as the US MDA continues to delay awarding a new contract.

Work will be performed in Fort Greely, AK; Vandenberg AFB, CA; Colorado Springs, CO; and Huntsville, AL. FY 2012 research, development, test and evaluation funds will be used. The US Missile Defense Agency, Redstone Arsenal, Ala., is the contracting activity (HQ0147-09-C-0007, PO 0049).  [Defense Industry Daily]

You can read a whole lot more at the link.

Continuing resolutions are having an effect on the GMD program, as the 2010 baseline effectively removes planned funding ramp-ups. So, too, is the January intercept failure, which may be traceable to Raytheon’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV).

Boeing’s VP of strategic missile defense efforts, Greg Hyslop, says that orders for some components are on hold. Obbital Sciences interceptor rockets are still being built, but they are then stored, in order to avoid retrofits if the EKV turns out to need modifications. Hyslop is putting his priority on getting the GBI missiles flying again, which means the major hit could happen in construction – especially work on missile field 2 at Fort Greely, AK.  [Defense Industry Daily]

You can read more at the link.

The test was technically a failure due to an SBX sensor issue but the interceptors allegedly performed normally during the test.

Riki Ellison, Chairman and Founder of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org has reviewed the FY2011 Missile Defense Budget released on February 1st by the Department of Defense which offers a substantial increase to the total budget for missile defense. This increase recovers close to half the amount that was cut by the President and Secretary Robert Gates a year ago. Ellison is one of the top lay experts in the world on the topic of missile defense. His comments and observations include the following:

“Early this week, President Barack Obama’s administration and the Department of Defense announced a substantial increase to the 2011 Missile Defense Budget. The amount, $9.42 billion, equals a 6.13 percent increase from the 2010 budget. This increase, $577 million, recovers close to half the amount that was cut by the President and Secretary Robert Gates a year ago. ” [Defence Pros]

People that follow missile defense probably all remember that just back in April the widely publicized cuts in missile defense were announced.  However, the budget was cut, but I did like Secretary Gates strategy of focusing funding on missile defense systems that currently work.

With this new announcement the focusing of money on missile defense that currently works is only continuing:

Among the highlights of the 2011 Missile Defense Budget Request are:

• Increase of development funding of $359 million for the Ground Based Interceptors.
- Plans to construct 38 GBI silos and to buy 56 GBIs.
- A significant reversal from the 30 silos and 44 GBIs from last years request.

• Increase of 249 THAAD (142) and AEGIS SM3 (107) land and sea-based regional missile defense interceptors for a total of 867 by 2015.

• Upgrades of 3 additional Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Ships.

• Addition of three new Missile Defense programs:
- $256 million for the Land-Based SM3 program that will go to over a $1.0 Billion by 2015.
- $99 million to Directed Energy Programs.
- $67 million for a future space based satellite sensor constellation called Precision Tracking Space System (PTSS) that will go to $1.2 Billion by 2015.

• Increase to $1.47 billion (up $31 million) for the AEGIS program.

• Increase to $1.0 billion (up $52 million) for the Patriot Terminal Defense interceptors and systems.

• Increase to $1.11 billion (up $290 million) for missile defense testing and targets.

• Increase to $319 million (up $63 million) for co-development with Japan on the Sea Based SM3-BlockIIa interceptor.

The increased funding into GMD is significant which is interesting considering the failure of the last fight test due to an issue with the SBX sensor.  However, the technology and capability of the GMD program is impressive for those familiar with it and I believe with more testing this can become a more reliable program.  Apparently the President now thinks so as well.

THAAD live fire at the Pacific Missile Range Facility In Hawaii.

What I am most excited about is to see more money being put into the THAAD and AEGIS SM-3 programs.  These are both very successful systems.  Also it was good to see money being poured into the land-based SM-3 program that will allow the missile to deployed in areas that an AEGIS ship cannot access.  Finally considering the failure of the last THAAD flight test due to a target issue it is good to see that more money is being poured into testing and targets.

All in all I continue to believe a solid missile defense strategy is in place by Secretary Gates and President Obama.

The Missile Defense Agency conducted a flight test today of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System.

A target missile was successfully launched at approximately 3:40 p.m. PST from the U.S. Army’s Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands.  Approximately six minutes later, a Ground-Based Interceptor was successfully launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.  Both the target missile and Ground-Based Interceptor performed nominally after launch.  However, the Sea-Based X-band radar did not perform as expected.

Program officials will conduct an extensive investigation to determine the cause of the failure to intercept.  [MDA Website]

The thing people need to keep in mind is that this system is extremely complex and what it is doing is not easy and thus needs testing and with testing you have trial and error.

Shahab-3 Missile In Iran

Fake “North Korean” missiles have been hurtling over the Pacific toward the U.S. for years, providing test fodder for the Pentagon’s missile-defense systems. But next month, the fake enemy missiles flying over the same ocean are going to be “Iranian.” The timing of the test, however, has nothing to do with a missile test-fired by Iran on Tuesday. That was a medium-range Sajjil-2 missile capable of targeting Israel or U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf. Next month’s U.S. interceptor test will, instead, be aimed at the as-yet-hypothetical threat of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), even though such a threat has been deemed by the Obama Administration to be unlikely in the immediate future.

The Administration announced earlier this year that the long-range Iranian threat isn’t advancing as quickly as once feared. Recent U.S. intelligence assessments have concluded that “the threat of a potential Iranian ICBM had been slower to develop than previously estimated,” Ellen Tauscher, the State Department’s arms-control chief, told Congress. Some intelligence estimates say an Iranian ICBM might not happen until 2020. That assessment prompted the President, with Pentagon support, to scrap a land-based interceptor system based in Poland and the Czech Republic and instead to deploy ships capable of shooting down the short- and mid-range Iranian missiles that U.S. intelligence believes pose a more imminent threat — like the sort of missile test-fired by Iran this week.

Next month’s missile test not only will be aimed at a threat deemed less than urgent but will also involve tougher technical challenges. Destroying a “North Korean” missile involves hitting it as it zooms from left to right across an interceptor’s field of view, but the locations of the “Iranian” missile and the U.S. interceptors require more of a head-on collision. That means the closing speed between the two projectiles will be faster than in previous tests: close to 18,000 m.p.h., compared with 15,000 m.p.h. in prior exercises.  [TIME Magazine]

The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] on Dec. 11 responded to a U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) request for proposal on the follow-on core completion contract for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) program. The contract covers all remaining development and deployment work for the GMD core element. Boeing’s response will assist MDA in determining its plan for future GMD work.

“We are proud of our role as prime integrator of the GMD system — delivering an operational defense capability to the United States and its warfighters,” said Norm Tew, vice president and program director of GMD for Boeing. “We look forward to the opportunity to continue leading this vital component of the nation’s defense.”

In March 2008, the MDA announced its intention to award Boeing the core completion contract sole source, stating that GMD “work content areas cannot be performed by any source other than Boeing without substantial and unacceptable programmatic risk, duplicative cost, and schedule delays.” Boeing has been the prime contractor for the GMD system since 2001, overseeing an industry team including Orbital Sciences, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Bechtel and Teledyne Brown in developing and deploying the United States’ only defense against long-range ballistic missiles. Boeing has been operating under a bridge contact since January 2009 while the core completion request for proposal was finalized. The contract award for the core completion work is expected in January 2010.

The core completion contract is expected to include additional refurbishments of ground-based interceptors, hardware and software upgrades, and planning and execution of future flight and ground tests.

“We are grateful that MDA has entrusted us with such important work,” said Greg Hyslop, vice president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems. “Keeping the contract in the hands of this proven industry team will guarantee a robust capability this country can rely on to defend itself against long-range ballistic missiles.”

The Huntsville-based GMD program has deployed more than 20 operational interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., to defend the United States against long-range ballistic missile threats. An integral element of the global ballistic missile defense system, GMD also consists of radars, other sensors, command-and-control facilities, communications terminals and a 20,000-mile fiber optic communications network.  [Defence Professionals]